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At the end of the Second World War British art was, if not quite in a parlous state, at least in a parochial one. The leading lights among the moderns were Graham Sutherland in painting and Henry Moore in sculpture, both of whom were in their mid-forties. While New York had Pollock, Rothko and the abstract expressionists, and France had the imperious Picasso and Matisse, London, in Cyril Connolly’s words, was notable only for its “miles of unpainted half-uninhabited houses, its chopless chop houses, its beerless pubs” and an art scene that mirrored the national austerity. Meanwhile, professional artists were rare beasts: Lucian Freud recalled being asked at a party what he did and, when he said he was a painter, being met with the…